Ultimate laps

An ultimate lap is a driver’s best time in each of the three sectors that make up a lap combined.

Two drivers who were knocked out before Q3 could have made it a stage further if they’d done their fastest sectors in the same lap: Michael Schumacher and Pastor Maldonado. Schumacher had a problem with his adjustable rear wing in the final sector.

If Sergio Perez had put all his best sectors together he’d be three places higher on the grid.

This is a very interesting situation, especially as the McLaren is a newer car and therefore is likely to have more development potential. Personally, I think it’ll be good to see Vettel taken off pole sometime soon. Nobody doubts his amazing ability to lead from the front, but it would be good for both F1 and Vettel’s racecraft to see him battle up the field.

Seeing that both Vettel and Hamilton are running almost identical straight lines speeds it could indeed be very interesting. Let’s hope we get a good first half of the race between the two and then maybe some rain to puzzle things up a bit! =)

You are sure Vettel is quicker? Quicker than who? He only proved to be quicker than Webber until now. Winning in qualifying over others when you have the faster car doesn’t mean you are quicker.
Actually considering last years Red Bull advantage, the fact that Alonso and Hamilton challenged him a few times in qualifying makes it seem that he probably isn’t quicker but slower.
I don’t think he will be having such an easy time if Hamilton was his teammate.

Besides, the huge advantage was stil there even if the car was a tad unreliable at times.

It’s better to have a car that can win every race but finishes only 4 out of every 5 races rather than a car that is best for P3 at best. Which (in Hamilton’s case) only finishes 4 out of 5 races as well.

I reckon Button is the example of where that car is, he drives it exactly to potential, he’s also sly on the track and a predatory scheemer in his overtaking, when Button is in the zone he acheives the total maximum of what his cars can acheive. Unfortunatley his in a team making cars designed for Lewis Hamilton, who takes his speed by controlling a car gone beyond the limit, so the days of his dominance at Brawn seem to have passed.

Webber drives the Redbull under potential, I think because it’s designed to suit Vettle but thats just conjecture on my part.

Vettle does drive his car faster than it should, he has massive confidence and the car is designed to suit his idiosyncrasies, however he drives a car so good it seems like it can be driven to the edge and brought back under control thanks to the masssive downforce and stability contained within it.

Before bringing their car to the tests, McLaren were considering their car a ‘downforce monster’. Maybe thats what it is now they have a working exhaust system and time to work on setups without the car breaking down all the time.
I still remember how people were screaming Hamilton shoud get outof McLaren as fast as possibe .. where are they now I wonder?!

I agree, I was very critical of Macca during the Barcelona testing but I also factored in to the equation… Never underestimate McLaren. Certainly a lot of of people are feeling a bit silly now over the McLaren’s present performance.

Certainly Alonso wasn’t one of them. He predicted a McLaren to be fighting for the podium in the Aus GP.

Still here. This is not a game of horse shoes. Close is not enough. Evidence remains that if you want to be champ, your best chance is in a Newey car now. Can McLaren get titles this year? Possibly, espeically if Ferrari stay out of the picture. But why do it the hard way? Hamilton is carrying .2-.3s on Button generally, which means that now and last year, he is heaving that car forward on pure talent just to be second/third best. Hamilton did not swear a blood oath to serve Woking. When Webber gets the sack this year, he should go with the fizzy drinks people.

I think I’d wait a few races before comming to a decision. The new McLaren is such a new design that it likely has tonnes of development potential. More than any other competitive team. Couple that with the fact that McLaren seem to be able to develop anything into a winner, I’d say that he’s in pretty good company. Lets not forget McLaren gave him the fastest car on the track for 2 of the 4 seasons that he’s been there and they may well end up doing it again this year. It takes more than Newey to make a good race car.

I that you are wrong. Red Bull don’t get their biggest advantage in circuits like Malaysia and Turkey. Mclaren last year was never bad at tracks with big straights and fast corners. Melbourne is actually more fitting to Red Bull.
Red Bull is best at tracks with small straights and lots of slower corners with a few fast corners. Remember Hungary last year?
Malaysia doesn’t have much small tight corners.

From what I understood from last year Macca were awesome with the long straights & tight corners because of their great straight line speed and precise nature in the slow corners. Whereas Red Bell were better on the tracks with long fast corners. I thought I remember the drivers saying that they couldn’t believe that the Red Bulls were going flat out through certain corners last year.

I’d agree, the McLaren seems so stiff that the bumpy slow staff throws it way out of wack, although it seemed to pass that somewhat in Singapore, in Hamiltons hands at least.

It did alright in Aus but that was a barley tested car so what we’re seeing here might be closer to the cars potential on a track that suits it better.

It remains to be seen how well McLaren can develop what they got now, what lessons they’ve learned from last year, an whether it’ll be a bit like last year an only able to challenge the incredibly versatile Redbull on certain circuits.

One characteristic I’d still like to see is the differance in race peace the McLaren seemed to have last year, I’d liked to know also whether the Redbulls still suffer from the mild slow down they seem to last year.

Last year Ferrari had the best all rounder car, at least in the hands of Alonso. They were not the quickest on the straights (that was Mclaren), nor were they through the corners (that was Red Bull).

I reckon they’ll be the same this year once they’ve sorted out the gremlins they currently have. Mercedes is clearly the most powerful unit on the grid, so what Ferrari need to do is figure out how to get a bit more downforce to get themselves on to the front rows of the grid.

I’m almost a littlebit disappointed that HRT didn’t beat one of the Virgins, still it looks like they can live up to the expectations I had after Mebourne. Still I’m a little undecided if thats more positive for HRT or negative for Virgin.
Overall, the small teams don’t look so bad today :-)

But at this rate of improvement by HRT, the Virgins might come under pressure from Liuzzi at the next race already.

Not sure about Karthikeyan, it might be a lot to do with getting into it again. And I can understand how rookies have more trouble getting a perfect lap in (Perez, Maldonado), although D’Ambrosio did fine and Di Resta has no trouble.
Is it possible Di Restas winning not a “hatchling” series but a real adult racing series (DTM) helps him here?

Maybe they’re running more downforce than McLaren? It’s probably going to rain for the race, isn’t it? Maybe they just needed the KERS to make up for what they have lost in straight line speed by putting more wing on?

If they disappear off into the distance tomorrow on a wet/damp track, we’ll know for sure.

I think the fact that he completely dominated F1 with 5 back to back WDCs at Ferrari and made Senna wonder how on earth Schumacher could breeze past him so easily shows that he was once good enough. But again, Formula 1 is supposed to be the most physically straining sport in the world, if footballers can’t handle it past 40 (remember david Seaman in the world cup? Oh no my back’s gone!) what chance does he stand?

It’s sad because people will always question his greatness now. Was he really that good? Would he have ever had coped with the likes of alonso, Hamilton etc. Personally I think they would have quite easily beat him with equal equipment. This comeback was in my eyes the biggest mistake of his life

Agreed Damon, it’s sad but maybe he deserves this medicine, maybe it was the whole reason why he came back, to see if he really was the “GOAT” and it’s showing with a dark horse like Nico beating him at everything.

After this year he might just drop it and admit he was the best in his era with reasons, but not this one.

I think that he’ll call it a day if this season proves to be like the last – i.e. no wins, no podiums, struggling to get into Q3 and being thrashed by his teammate. The car might be off the pace but I think Rosberg is showing where it’s actually at, and Schumacher is underperforming.

I don’t think he made such a huge mistake by coming back, I think it’ll end up being more of a mediocre footnote to a glittering career than completely destroying his reputation.

Let me see, Schumi is a 7-time world champion. Proved his stuff at two different teams. Alonso won at Renault and Hamilton at McLaren. Let Alonso do it atleast thrice more at Ferrari and let Hamilton atleast win another title with McLaren and then we will see about putting their names in the same line as Schumi.

Even they would laugh if they have been told they are better than Schumi. His dedication, commitment, desire to win and the knowledge to help the team in unrivaled.

Him and Senna are a different breed and I think we should be happy that we get to watch them race in the same generation albeit with a few years difference.

Like IÂ´ve said in the aftermatch of melbourne mclaren are as fast as the reds, they discovered black powder with that new copycat titanium diffuser (they didnt had time to make it on carbon fiber or does titanium has special heat isolation properties). Ferrari remain as bad as they were in testing, not a very stable car when you see that you know that they arent going to be fastest, finnaly what a surprise vettel again very smooth driver very smoth drive. have you seen his front wheel camber and toe setting? just check the pictures really extreme.

It will be interesting to see who pits first. Red Bull may just be using it’s KERS to make up for the larger amount of downforce it’s using. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see both Red Bull’s disappear into the distance if it rains. Maybe at races where the threat of rain is less likely, they will run less downforce and the gap will go back up again.

But his team mate had already qualified long before him so there was no need t keep pushing when reliability can be an issue for the race. So why not just save your engines. But beating someone who hasn”t raced in 5yrs can’t be considered a great feat.